Madonna news - July 2011

← June 2011 | Aug. 2011 →27 July - W.E. at Venice and Toronto Film Festival
It was rumoured for a while, and now it has been confirmed by
Variety that Madonna's feature film
W.E. will premiere at the Venice Film Festival,
which takes place between August 31 and September 10, 2011. W.E. will be competing with movies from Roman Polanski, Steven Soderbergh,
David Cronenberg, Abel Ferrara and George Clooney, among others.

Right after Venice, Madonna will head to Toronto for the International Film Festival (between Sept. 8 and Sept. 18, 2011). The Hollywood Reporter reported which other stars you can expect on Toronto's red carpet.

Meanwhile, The Examiner crushed the story of the Daily Mail, which pretended that the test screening of W.E. went bad.
"The Daily Mail article was laughable from the start. 85 percent of the audience surveyed after the first test screening either
said the film was excellent, very good, or good. Those results are amazing for a first test screening."

The Examiner article also claims to have info on a possible next movie project for director Madonna: "Her next movie, which
doesn’t have a title, is said to be a story based on the 1970s television show ZOOM and the tribulations of young stars dealing
with the death of their beloved music director after a tragic car accident."

19 July - Material Girl line expands with beauty products
Madonna's fashion label Material Girl will launch a beauty range next month.
The fashion label - which the singer designs with her 14-year-old daughter Lourdes - will expand to include a range of nail polish,
lipgloss, body sprays and lotions in Macy's New York next month with eye-shadows following in September and Lourdes loves choosing
her favourite products.

She explained to WWD: "It was so much fun getting to pick all of my favourite scents for the Material Girl body products and lip glosses.
The body products have fun names like Wicked Watermelon, Flirty Fruit, Midnight Magnolia and Sinful Sugar. I chose scents that I loved."
Lanie List, chief merchandising officer at Iconix Brand Group - who have partnered with Material Girl on the collection - revealed
Lourdes has a "very sophisticated eye" but all choices have to be approved by her mother.

She said: "Lola is 14 but she lives in New York City and has a very famous mom, so she has a very sophisticated eye. Lola is here once
a month and sometimes more. She brings stuff from her own closet for inspiration. For the bath and body products she probably had 100
scents in front of her. She has a very mature approach to product development.
"Madonna definitely has creative input also. It's a collaboration between the two. If Lola goes to a place with an idea that Madonna
doesn't think is appropriate for the brand, she'll veto it. She's a branding expert." (source:
ContactMusic)

12 July - Highlights of 10 years Mad-Eyes: Madonna selects a picture from Mad-Eyes!
Today we take you back to November 2005 for one of the biggest highlights in the history of this fansite. Madonna had just presented the world her new disco record
Confessions On A Dance Floor. While the lead-off single Hung Up was a smash hit across the globe, Madonna treated her fans to a few
fantastic promo gigs. One of them was at the G.A.Y. club in downtown London, where some members of the Mad-Eyes team danced to her new disco material on the front row. A
gallery of wonderful close-ups soon followed on the website for everyone to enjoy. Little did we know it would draw more attention than expected.

A few days later, Mad-Eyes received a mail from Denise, an assistant of Angela Becker, who was Madonna's manager at the time. She said they had seen the G.A.Y. gallery and told us
that "Madonna likes the pictures a lot." It all sounded too surreal to believe, but we were asked to get in touch. And so we ended up at the management office, at the ground floor of Madonna's London house. We were starting to believe this was all for real! One picture in particular drew Madonna's attention and it was agreed upon the rights would be sold
to her. At first, the picture was considered for some marketing on the website. But that would soon change.

In January 2006, we were notified that the picture had been reworked by Giovanni Bianco, who had taken care of the Confessions art work as well. He had coloured her
blond hair red and improved the lighting. Quite stunned, we heard that the picture would become the cover art work for Madonna's next single
Sorry.
As a reward, Madonna sent us a signed vinyl copy of the single, thanking us for "sharing our genius"!
It was the first and only time that Madonna used a fan picture for any official art work instead of a shot from a professional photographer.

So did Madonna really keep her earlier promise to visit Mad-Eyes? Or was it a coincidence that her team directed her attention to us? Either way, it was the ultimate copnfirmation that yes, Madonna does check her fansites and she liked what she saw on Mad-Eyes. What could possibly be more rewarding for a fansite?

07 July - Highlights of 10 years Mad-Eyes: Meeting Madonna
Sure, watching one of Madonna's shows from front row is one of the best things a fan can experience. But nothing can beat a personal meeting with the lady herself, right? In November 2004, I received this chance when Madonna did a book signing session for her childrens book The Adventures of Abdi in Selfridges London.

The long and cold night of queueing would soon be forgotten, when a security guard escorted me towards Madonna. She looked ravishing in her black blouse and with her
long blond curls. Her incredible charisma is reassuring and
intimidating at the same time.
Even though I had rehearsed some lines and had promised myself not to act like the hysterical fan earlier in the queue, I was too stunned to utter more than a shy "hi" at first. She asked my name for the signature and when she heard me say "Bartie", she cheekily frowned "Bartie? What kind of name is that?". I laughed and asked her if she ever took the time to visit her fansites. "Yeah, I do sometimes" she smiled. I then told her to check out one of the most dedicated sites and she said she would. Little did I know at that time she would keep her word...Read the full story here.

06 July - Martin Solveig among new producers? *rumour*
According to Perez Hilton, French DJ Martin Solveig
is among the producers of Madonna's new album:

"She's wasting no time determining how to reinvent her sound, is she?!
It's only just been announced that Madonna is back in the studio and working on her twelfth studio album, and now, sources close to the diva have revealed that
she's enlisted the help of French DJ and producer Martin Solveig to help her on her new tracks!
Amazing! We LOVE his stuff with Dragonette, and have a feeling gurlfriend is looking to get back to that house/dance feel she did SO WELL with
Confessions on a Dancefloor!
This is going to be EPIC! We can already tell!"

There are already other names circulating on the web. Brother-in-law Joe Henry, who also co-wrote Don't Tell Me and
Jump, would be on board to co-write 2 tracks.
Diagram Of The Heart would have made a demo for Madonna. Other supposed musical inspirations include Beth Ditto, Jessica 6 and The sound of Arrow. Some sources claim
that Live Nation suggested working with famous producers such as RedOne, but Madonna refused.
Remember that we're in a very early stage of the production process. Many rumours will turn out to be false, and even if the collaborations are true, a lot can still
change.

04 July - Madonna in recording studio Guy Oseary tweets: "It's official.. Madonna's 1st day in the recording studio for the new album... Very exciting.. Happy 4th of july..."

04 July - Highlights of 10 years Mad-Eyes: GHV2 booklet revealed In our bday week, we look back at another highlight in the history of Mad-Eyes. In November 2001, Madonna released her compilation album GHV2. Mad-Eyes, only 4 months old, got hold of one of the first copies of the album and was the first to share the fine art work by Kevin Reagan and Bret Healey online..

02 July - It's a Celebration: 10 years Mad-Eyes!

Exactly 10 years ago, on July 2nd 2001, a new Madonna fansite was launched. It was a small and modest website in blue colours, with a design inspired by Madonna's eyes, therefore aptly named Mad-Eyes. Throughout the years the website grew, got more content... and more visitors. While there were many fansites focusing on news exclusives, gossip and paparazzi pictures, Mad-Eyes has always tried in the first place to offer high quality content and information about Madonna and her multi-faceted career. Each tour is covered in a tour diary and with press reviews and fan reports. Each song, each album and each movie has got its own page, summarizing each and every detail. The news section focuses mainly on articles that actually interest the fans and tries to report everything with dignity and respect. We've done our best to stay far away from fansite wars and forum competition. At Mad-Eyes, we're all Madonna fans together. After all... Music makes the people come together, right?

Anyway, we had wished we could celebrate our 10th anniversary with some new Madonna music, but at least we can comfort ourselves with the thought that Madonna is going back into the studio in our anniversary month. Meanwhile, over the next few days, we want to share some of our website highlights with you. And to all the loyal fans who've been visiting us for years: a big thank you for sticking with us! All your compliments and nice words really make it worthwhile to continue working on the site, even after 10 years. Finally, don't forget to join us on Facebook for more Madonna content and discussions with other Mad-Eyes fans!

Highlights of 10 years Mad-Eyes: Drowned World Tour diary In the beginning, the site contained some basic lyric pages and a bit of news. But the first site feature that really drew the attention of online Madonna fans, was our very first tour diary. Not coincidently, the site launched just 1 month after the launch of the Drowned World Tour. Myself, webmaster Bart, I had seen the shows in Barcelona and Paris. Like many fans, it was the first time I saw our Queen live at work. Enthusiastically, I described the details of the long hours of queueing before the shows, meeting up with so many other fans and of course all the wonderful performances. The tour diary quickly gained a lot of fans of its own, who would feed it with details from other shows. Later on, the same concept was used for the Re-Invention, Confessions and Sticky & Sweet Tour.

01 July - Guetta denies Madonna collaboration David Guetta has dismissed rumours that he has worked with Madonna, Britney Spears and U2 on either his or their upcoming records. The French DJ and producer, who is currently preparing to release his new album Nothing But The Beat on August 30, explained that he has met with U2's Bono, but nothing has been recorded. Guetta told Billboard: "We actually met with Bono and we spoke about it. "He announced it in some of his interviews so I started to announce it too, because he spoke about it, and then we never spoke again. So it might happen one day - I would love to - but he kind of disappeared." The 43-year-old also denied claims that he has been working with Britney Spears and Madonna, saying that neither of the chart-toppers will be appearing on his new album. Guetta recently told Digital Spy that he would love to work with Madonna, branding her "amazing". (source: Digital Spy)